̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Mexico

Young leaders from UK and Latin America tackle future at Shaping Horizons

plc32 — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 12:18:09 +0000

They will explore how emerging technologies like those underpinning genomics, artificial intelligence, clean energy, and smart cities can be used and regulated to create a more equitable and sustainable global community as well as how to encourage sustainable leadership across disciplines and move beyond traditional diplomacy to address global challenges like climate change and social inequalities.

Shaping Horizons 2019 is a Summit and Action Programme rooted in science, policy, and innovation and will strengthen ties and build relationships between young Future Leaders and Senior Leaders from the UK and Latin America. ̽��ֱ��delegates have been selected from across academia, industry, and government.

Professor David Cardwell, FREng, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Strategy and Planning at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, welcomed delegates at the start of the Summit on behalf of the ̽��ֱ��.

“On every front, the ̽��ֱ�� has been and continues to be engaged with Latin America, including the pleasure of hosting this fantastic summit, Shaping Horizons, where the mission is to empower and promote youth, create networks and to drive change,” Cardwell said.

̽��ֱ��week will culminate with the Future Leaders pitching for prize money to support their own innovative social impact projects they have developed through mentorship and learning during the Summit.

Winners will be supported in further developing and launching their projects through the Action Programme which will follow on from the Summit.

Nigel Baker, OBE MVO, Head of the Latin America Department at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office told delegates that all their ideas would help shape the future.

“Shaping Horizons is absolutely driven by the sense of entrepreneurship, innovation, and ideas of the young people involved. It is going to be fascinating to see the proposals that are coming out,” Baker said.

“There are 24 different teams and there are going to be some spectacular proposals and ideas. Some will win prizes, some will not, but I suspect that all of those ideas are going to be applicable in the future.”

Shaping Horizons is a non-profit initiative organised at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge with the support of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, and the Cambridge Hub of Global Shapers Community, which is an initiative of the World Economic Forum.

Shaping Horizons was founded by Dr Matias Acosta, a UK-Canada Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, and Theo Lundberg, a NanoDTC PhD Student in the Department of Physics.

“Shaping Horizons was founded to promote sustainability using global, cross-disciplinary cooperation as our driving force,” Acosta said.

“We are a team of 40 undergraduates and academics from across more than 20 departments from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge bringing this initiative forward. Our goal is to build a shared and sustainable future between Latin America and the UK.

"We will be providing more than £30,000 in support for cooperative bilateral projects and also have designed a continuous mentorship programme to maximize the chance of success of each of the ideas.”

More than 100 future leaders from the UK and Latin America have gathered at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge to discuss the future of work and education in an increasingly global digital era at this year’s Shaping Horizons summit.

Shaping Horizons was founded to promote sustainability using global, cross-disciplinary cooperation as our driving force.

Shaping Horizons founder Dr Matias Acosta

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Scientists measure severity of drought during the Maya collapse

sc604 — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the ̽��ֱ�� of Florida developed a method to measure the different isotopes of water trapped in gypsum, a mineral that forms during times of drought when the water level is lowered, in Lake Chichancanab in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula where the Maya were based.

Based on these measurements, the researchers found that annual precipitation decreased between 41% and 54% relative to today during the period of the Maya civilisation’s collapse, with periods of up to 70% rainfall reduction during peak drought conditions, and that relative humidity declined by 2% to 7% relative to today. ̽��ֱ��results are reported in the journal Science.

“ ̽��ֱ��role of climate change in the collapse of Classic Maya civilisation is somewhat controversial, partly because previous records are limited to qualitative reconstructions, for example whether conditions were wetter or drier,” said Nick Evans, a PhD student in Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences and the paper’s first author. “Our study represents a substantial advance as it provides statistically robust estimates of rainfall and humidity levels during the Maya downfall.”

Maya civilisation is divided into four main periods: the Preclassic (2000 BCE – 250 CE), Classic (250 CE – 800 CE), terminal Classic (800 - 1000 CE) and Postclassic (1000 CE – 1539 CE). ̽��ֱ��Classic period was marked by the construction of monumental architecture, intellectual and artistic development, and the growth of large city-states.

During the 9^th century however, there was a major political collapse in the central Maya region: their famous limestone cities were abandoned and dynasties ended. And while the Maya people survived beyond this period, their political and economic power was depleted.

There are multiple theories as to what caused the collapse of the Maya civilisation, such as invasion, war, environmental degradation and collapsing trade routes. In the 1990s, however, researchers were able to piece together climate records for the period of the Maya collapse and found that it correlated with an extended period of extreme drought.

Professor David Hodell, Director of Cambridge’s Godwin Laboratory for Palaeoclimate Research and the senior author of the current paper, provided the first physical evidence of a correlation between this period of drought at Lake Chichancanab and the downfall of the Classic Maya civilisation in a paper published in 1995.

Now, Hodell and his colleagues have applied a new method and estimated the extent of this drought. Using a new geochemical method to measure the water locked within gypsum from Chichancanab, the researchers have built a complete model of hydrological conditions during the terminal Classic Period when the Maya collapsed.

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed the different isotopes of water trapped within the crystal structure of the gypsum to determine changes in rainfall and relative humidity during the Maya downfall.

They measured three oxygen and two hydrogen isotopes to reconstruct the history of the lake water between 800 and 1000 CE. When gypsum forms, water molecules are incorporated directly into its crystalline structure, and this water records the different isotopes that were present in the ancient lake water at the time of its formation. “This method is highly accurate and is almost like measuring the water itself,” said Evans.

In periods of drought, more water evaporates from lakes such as Chichancanab, and because the lighter isotopes of water evaporate faster, the water becomes heavier. A higher proportion of the heavier isotopes, such as oxygen-18 and hydrogen-2 (deuterium), would indicate drought conditions. By mapping the proportion of the different isotopes contained within each layer of gypsum, the researchers were able to build a model to estimate past changes in rainfall and relative humidity over the period of the Maya collapse.

This quantitative climate data can be used to better predict how these drought conditions may have affected agriculture, including yields of the Maya’s staple crops, such as maize.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the European Research Council.

Reference:
Nicholas P. Evans et al. ‘Quantification of Drought During the Collapse of the Classic Maya Civilization.’ Science (2018). DOI: 10.1126/science.aas9871

Inset image: Lake Chichancanab, the site of the study. Chichancanab means “Little Sea” in Yucatec Maya, reflecting its relatively salty water composed dominantly of calcium and sulfate. (Credit: Mark Brenner)

̽��ֱ��severity of drought conditions during the demise of the Maya civilisation about 1,000 years ago has been quantified, representing another piece of evidence that could be used to solve the longstanding mystery of what caused the downfall of one of the ancient world’s great civilisations.

̽��ֱ��role of climate change in the collapse of Classic Maya civilisation is somewhat controversial, partly because previous records are limited to qualitative reconstructions.

Nick Evans

Edzná ruins, Campeche

Yes

Biggest library of bat sounds compiled to track biodiversity

jeh98 — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 11:41:21 +0000

An international team led by scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, ̽��ֱ�� College London (UCL), and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), developed the reference call library and a new way of classifying calls to accurately and quickly identify and differentiate bat species.

̽��ֱ��researchers say the method can be used to monitor biodiversity change and complete information on bat species distributions in remote and understudied regions in Mexico. It could also be expanded for use in other areas across the Neotropics, which incorporates South and Central America, and the Caribbean Islands and Florida.

It is the first time automatic classification for bat calls has been attempted for a large variety of species, most of them previously noted as hard to identify acoustically.

“Audio surveys are increasingly used to monitor biodiversity change, and bats are especially useful for this as they are an important indicator species, contributing significantly to ecosystems as pollinators, seed dispersers and suppressors of insect populations,” explains lead author Dr Veronica Zamora-Gutierrez, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute and UCL.

“By tracking the sounds they use to explore their surroundings, we can characterise the bat communities in different regions in the long term and gauge the impact of rapid environmental change.”

“Before now it was tricky to do as many bat species have very similar calls and differ in how well they can be detected. We overcame this by using machine learning algorithms together with information about hierarchies to automatically identify different bat species.”

For the study, published today in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, the researchers ventured into some of the most dangerous areas of Mexico, primarily the northern deserts, to collect 4,685 calls from 1,378 individual bats from 59 of the over 130 species occurring in Mexico.

Most of the areas hadn’t been sampled before and the data collected, along with additional information from collaborators, provides calls for over half of the species and all of the families of bats in Mexico.

Co-author, Professor Kate Jones, UCL and ZSL, said: “We’ve shown it is possible to reliably and rapidly identify bats in mega-diverse areas, such as Mexico, and we hope this encourages uptake of this method to monitor biodiversity changes in other biodiversity hotspot areas such as South America.”

“Our ability to readily map ecological communities is imperative for understanding the impact of the Anthropocene and implementing effective conservation measures.”

̽��ֱ��team now plan on developing a citizen science monitoring programme for Mexican bats to collect further information on bat calls. They will also develop more robust tools for bat identification using the Bat Detective website which will allow them to refine the machine learning algorithms used by the software.

̽��ֱ��study also involved researchers from the IPN CIIDIR Durango (Mexico), Universidad Veracruzana (Mexico), Western ̽��ֱ�� (Canada), ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol, ̽��ֱ�� of Ulm (Germany), Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama), Ernst-Moritz-Arndt ̽��ֱ�� (Germany), ̽��ֱ�� College Dublin and ̽��ֱ�� of Warwick. It was kindly funded by CONACYT, Cambridge Commonwealth European and International Trust, ̽��ֱ��Rufford Foundation, American Society of Mammalogists, Bat Conservation International, Idea Wild, ̽��ֱ��Whitmore Trust and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Adapted from a ̽��ֱ�� College London press release.

Inset image: ̽��ֱ��western yellow bat (Lasiurus xanthinus) is a species of vesper bat found in Mexico and the south-western United States (UCL/ZSL).

Researchers have compiled the largest known library of bat calls to identify and conserve rare species in Mexico – a country which is home to many of the world’s bats and has one of the highest rates of species extinction and habitat loss.

Bats are especially useful for monitoring biodiversity change as they are an important indicator species, contributing significantly to ecosystems

Veronica Zamora-Gutierrez

Noel Reynolds

Bat

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Prize tomato

amb206 — Wed, 30 May 2012 07:35:29 +0000

Tomatoes are big business in Mexico, especially in the centre and north of the country. Producers range from large growers, whose farms are equipped with extensive automation and irrigation systems, to small cultivators who eke out a living with the slimmest of resources on plots as small as a single hectare. Small growers are particularly vulnerable to technology lock-ins (barriers to switching to new technologies) and re-investment limitations. They do not have access to advice about improving productivity.

With these small growers in mind, a four-strong team of graduate students on Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s MPhil course in Engineering for Sustainable Development devised ̽��ֱ��Ethical Tomato Company, a concept that has won them first prize in the McKinsey Innovate 2012 competition. Their £5,000 award, plus access to advice from McKinsey, will help them take their project on to the next stage and pilot their ideas in one of the major tomato-producing areas of Mexico.

̽��ֱ��Ethical Tomato Company addresses two main problems: productivity and wastage. Team member Pedro Zaragoza explained: Small farmers work with a very low level of technology which results in low productivity and low incomes. We propose to give them access to simple ways of improving their yields such as building timber-framed greenhouses and using organic compost that will enable them to improve their yields whilst protecting produce from pests and extreme weather.

While in richer countries food wastage occurs chiefly at the consumer end of the market, as people buy more than they need and allow food to perish, in developing countries food wastage occurs lower down the supply chain. It is quite shocking to discover that for every tomato sold in Mexico, another one is wasted. This happens because tomatoes do not reach the market at the right moment. This high level of wastage, with the resultant loss of precious income, is another area in which we hope to be able to help, explained Jorge Garcia Moreno, also a member of the team.

We plan to work with growers in bringing their produce to market and helping them to get a fair price. We propose to do this by becoming a tomato wholesaler and providing the logistics from farm to retail. ̽��ֱ��profits generated will be fairly distributed so that farmers get a better deal and let us expand the business to other farmers.

Although Mexican farmers are highly skilled in growing salad vegetables, they do not always receive the right advice when it comes to using modern fertilisers and chemicals.

Farmers have a lack of training in the use of nutrients such as nitrogen-based fertilizers. In order to achieve high yields they apply fertilizers and herbicides in excess and much of this runs off into the neighbouring water systems where it causes eutrophication. This is both wasteful and environmentally damaging. There are sustainable ways of improving yields that have minimal environmental impact, said Zaragoza.

We plan to share the knowledge through workshops and work closely with them throughout the first planting cycle.

Both Zaragoza, who did his first degree in chemical engineering, and Garcia Moreno, who studied biomedical engineering, are Mexican nationals. Tomatoes are close to our culture and Mexican tomatoes are some of the very best in the world, benefiting from sunshine and good soils, said Zaragoza.

One of the reasons that the team is planning to set up a pilot project in the centre of Mexico is that Zaragoza has family connections with the region’s tomato growers. ̽��ֱ��other members of the winning team are Stephanie Hirmer, who is a civil engineer from Germany and Daniel Gallagher from Scotland, also a civil engineer. Hirmer has experience of working in Uganda and Gallagher experience of working in El Salvador.

Garcia Moreno said that the MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development has given him and his peers the tools needed to go out into the world and change things for the better. What’s great about the course is that it encourages us to understand how social, environmental and economic aspects interact as part of a whole system, allowing us to develop holistic sustainable solutions, he said.

̽��ֱ��Ethical Tomato Company is now in the process of receiving advice from McKinsey consultants to develop plans for a pilot project in Mexico.

A group of students on the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s MPhil course in Engineering for Sustainable Development has devised a project that will help Mexico’s small producers of tomatoes by improving productivity and reducing wastage.

It is quite shocking to discover that for every tomato sold in Mexico, another one is wasted.

Jorge Garcia Moreno

voliwowli

Tomato

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Yes

Newman: ̽��ֱ��Catholic pin-up pinned down

bjb42 — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:42:44 +0000

John Cornwell's interest in Cardinal Newman began when he was a young seminarian at the age of 19. Rather against his will, a friend and enthusiast took him on a long trip across Birmingham, involving multiple bus-rides and lengthy walks, to find Newman's grave. It was the one day of the year when they were let out of the seminary for the entire period between mass and evening prayers, and Cornwell felt that the opportunity had been squandered on this seemingly needless mission. Afterwards, however, he had a sense that the spirit of the Cardinal was tugging at his sleeve, however, and it has never really left him since.

Cornwell has just written a study of Newman's life, but the process was a difficult journey in itself as his identity remains something of a mystery. Few people nowadays know who Cardinal Newman was and a mixture of often sharply contrasting interpretations of his life prevails. Before he began his work, a colleague in Cambridge suggested to Cornwell that Newman was a "pin-up boy for you Catholics". Just as many Catholics again, however, will have nothing to do with the man's memory.

Newman was born in 1801 and died in 1890, beginning his life in the age of sail and horsepower and ending it during the full flourish of the Victorian age. He was educated at Oxford and decided to become a priest in the Anglican Church, where he was one of a number of theologians who set about attempting to reverse the Church's perceived decay. Eventually, however, he became what Cornwell described as "perplexed" about the Anglican faith and switched to Catholicism. He became one of that Church's most eminent thinkers, a prolific writer, particularly on Christian apologetics, and eventually a Cardinal.

This unusual trajectory is one of the main reasons why his reputation is so mixed. In the mid-19th century, the number of people who saw him as a "Catholic pin-up" was matched by those who saw him as an apostate, (or pervert, to use the terminology and meaning of the age), who had abandoned the religion of his own family and thrown himself on the mercy of the idolatrous whore of Babylon. Within the Catholic Church, his liberal-minded theology caused a similar split in opinion. Pope Benedict is not a fan of Newman, for example; in the 19th Century, Leo XIII also found it hard to make him a Cardinal because of opposition within the Vatican from those who saw him as the most dangerous man in England.

̽��ֱ��same confusion about Newman continues to affect his reputation. When in 2008 an attempt was made to dig up his body for purposes of beatification, it emerged that he had not been buried alone, but with a close friend, Ambrose St. John. Media excitement about Newman's sexual proclivities ensued - Peter Tatchell went on Newsnight to announce that he had read letters from Newman referring to St John as "my first and my last", but others claimed the Cardinal was "irrefutably heterosexual". Even his portraits leave us with a mixed picture, some showing him as thin, sallow and troubled, others depicting him as warm, strong and comfortable within himself. When in 1863, Newman was accused by Charles Kingsley of favouring the idea that it was acceptable to tell lies, he set about writing his great Apologia, to stop "the phantom that gibbers instead of me". According to Cornwell, a variety of such phantoms never stopped their gibbering.

In attempting to pin Newman down, Cornwell found the consistency he was looking for in his life as a writer. " ̽��ֱ��sheer range of his writing is what hits you first," he said. Newman wrote monographs, hymns, prayers, meditations and so many letters that, to date, 32 fat volumes of his correspondence also exist. It was the letters which Cornwell found especially compelling. As well as illustrating aspects of Newman's religious thought, they reveal his sharp business mind. "He could read a balance sheet as well as anybody," Cornwell suggested. "You get this extraordinary effect of so many diamonds sparkling set in lead."

̽��ֱ��letters also show that Newman tussled, often painfully, with the act of writing. "He was trying to give some kind of energy and luminosity to the word on the page," Cornwell said. "He once wrote that the heart is reached not by reason but by the imagination. What he was trying to do as a writer was to speak to the heart through the imagination."

What emerges from this is that Newman's approach to theology was very different from the typical, abstract, logical, ahistorical Catholic mindset. He was clearly a sensitive man, who loved narrative and images. His work is full of similes, depicting the Church at times as a poet or a river, or seeing it in terms of geometry or architecture. It makes him a remarkably fresh voice within Catholic theology.

Cornwell thinks that by reading Newman in this sense we can, ultimately, understand something of his legacy. "What I feel he passes on to us is the tremendous importance of individual private judgement and conscience. ̽��ֱ��lesson of his life is never accept what your parents tell you, or your school tells you, or your church, mosque or synagogue tells you. Question everything. And be prepared to change."

Newman put this in theological terms, of course, believing conscience to be the "echo of the voice of God" inside us, telling us to pursue good and avoid evil. For Cornwell, this means that a man who was frequently under fire from both sides of the Anglican/Catholic divide nevertheless understood all humans to be "exalted" because of the echo of goodness inside them. He wrote also, in very poetic ways, of the fallen nature of human beings. Put together, Cornwell believes that these perspectives on the human condition give us a powerful basis on which to found mutual respect and a pluralistic society.

A second aspect of his legacy is his work on ̽��ֱ��Idea Of A ̽��ֱ��, which in its conception that a university should be about everything has become a blueprint for those setting up tertiary education institutions in various corners of the world. Tellingly, it was the point of reference for Edward Saeed, a social scientist of Palestinian origins, when he considered how such a higher education institution should be established in an Islamic state. "We live in a world where many Universities are becoming research intensive and this means our focus is on one track very early on," Cornwell said. "Newman is very clear about the fact that in a culture where this happens there can be very great dangers. An example would be BP in the Gulf of Mexico, which involved a preoccupation with making money and supplying energy without taking account of the historical or environmental aspects of the problem. Another example might be the Iraq War, where nobody thought forward sufficiently to how the country would be organised once the fighting was over. That tunnelvision has to start somewhere. It begins with the way we are encouraged to think, and Newman realised therefore that it happens with our education."

John Cornwell, director of Jesus College's Science and Human Dimension project, is also the author of a new biography of Cardinal John Henry Newman. ̽��ֱ��half-forgotten story of one of the 19th century's most important Catholic thinkers was one he found strewn with contradictory opinions, but ultimately also with lessons for our own time.

He once wrote that the heart is reached not by reason but by the imagination. What he was trying to do as a writer was to speak to the heart through the imagination.

John Cornwell on Cardinal Newman

Lin Pernille Photography from Flickr

Timeless Books

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Yes

Asteroid killed off the dinosaurs

bjb42 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A panel of 41 international experts, including UK researchers from Cambridge, Imperial College London, ̽��ֱ�� College London and the Open ̽��ֱ�� reviewed 20 years' worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which happened around 65 million years ago.

̽��ֱ��review, published in this week's Science, shows the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid around 15 kilometres wide slamming into Earth at Chicxulub, Mexico.

̽��ֱ��asteroid is believed to have hit Earth with a force one billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. It would have blasted material at high velocity into the atmosphere, triggering a chain of events that caused a global winter, wiping out much of life on Earth in a matter of days.

Scientists have previously argued about whether the extinction was caused by the asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted approximately 1.5 million years.

In 2005, scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge spent two months on board the US research vessel R/V Ewing collecting seismic data off the coast of Mexico.

Their data - part of the evidence reviewed in the new Science paper - revealed the structures preserved in the interior of the crater. This allowed them to use computer models to predict how much rock was vapourised or ejected by the impact.

According to Dr Penny Barton, who led the seismic survey and a co-author of the review: "Our work lets us visualise the astonishing events of the few minutes after impact. ̽��ֱ��front of the asteroid hit the Earth while the far side was still out in the upper atmosphere, punching a hole though the Earth's atmosphere.

"As the asteroid vapourised explosively, it created a crater 30 km deep and 100 km across, with sides as high as the Himalayas. However within only two minutes the sides collapsed inwards and the deepest parts of the crater rebounded upwards to leave a wide, shallow hollow.

"These terrifying events led to darkness and a global winter, resulting in the extinction of more than 70% of known species. ̽��ֱ��tiny shrew-like mammals which were around at that time proved better adapted to survival than the cumbersome dinosaurs, and the removal of these dominant animals paved the way for the radiation of the mammals and eventual emergence of humans on Earth."

̽��ֱ��Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, which wiped out the dinosaurs and more than half of species on Earth, was caused by an asteroid colliding with Earth and not massive volcanic activity, according to a comprehensive new review of all the evidence.

Our work lets us visualise the astonishing events of the few minutes after impact. ̽��ֱ��front of the asteroid hit the Earth while the far side was still out in the upper atmosphere, punching a hole though the Earth's atmosphere.

Dr Penny Barton

Glamour Schatz from Flickr

Meteor Crater AZ

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Yes

Engaging with Inuit communities

bjb42 — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Dr Barbara Bodenhorn, Newton Trust Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology, has an association with the Inupiat (Inuit) communities of the Alaskan Arctic that stretches back almost 30 years. Having lived and worked there, she returns often to learn how the Inupiat engage successfully with their environment – social, political and physical. Her current interests lie in how these communities perceive and adapt to environmental changes as they continue to work towards shaping their own futures.

Exploring these ‘roots of success’ extended to Mexico in 2004. A six-year interdisciplinary project was launched to explore environmental knowledge in forest communities with Dr Laura Barraza, a specialist in environmental education from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, which funded the project. ̽��ֱ��researchers particularly focused on adolescents: their knowledge of the environment, their appreciation of community membership, and their sense of the future.

Since 2006 this project has expanded to include an innovative exchange programme, funded by the US National Science Foundation, between students from the North Slope of Alaska and two forest communities of Mexico. Recently back from taking the Alaskan students to Mexico for a month, Dr Bodenhorn is delighted with the foundational and transformative potential of the interchange: ‘Through hands-on work with scientists and community elders, these young people gain new understanding of global processes, enrich their appreciation of their own local communities, and establish enduring bonds with young people whose worlds are very different from their own.’ As well as providing students with unique learning opportunities, these ‘temporary communities of knowledge’ underpin an anthropological examination of how scientific research is simultaneously understood by scientists, local experts, teachers and students.

Have you ever had a Eureka moment?

Occasionally people make throwaway comments that stop you dead in your tracks (in fact these frequently become titles of my papers!). My first ‘Aha!’ moment happened in 1979 when an Inupiat whaler said that the whale ‘gives itself up to the whaling Captain’s wife’. ̽��ֱ��major stereotype of Eskimos is that they are the most male-dominated of hunter-gatherer groups and, yet, Inupiat whalers regard the whale as giving itself as a gift to the community via the Captain’s wife. With this one comment, everything fell out of place and I realised my assumptions about hunting as well as gender had been wrong. As an anthropologist this is what I look for – what surprises me, what doesn’t fit, what challenges received wisdom.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

That you have to be realistic about what it is you can know based on what you’ve learned. This was advice I was given by an Inupiat woman when I was writing a report and feeling the pressure to generalise. She brought me down to Earth by telling me not to get fussed about discovering the nature of the world, but instead to stay focused on being true to the information I had gathered.

If you could wake up tomorrow with a new skill, what would it be?

Recently I’ve thought that perhaps I’d like to be a volcanologist. All the regions I study are profoundly affected by seismic activity and I’m fascinated by volcanoes, in terms of what they can do and how people think about them.

What motivates you to go to work each day?

It’s the thought that I am doing something in which it makes a difference that I’m the one who’s doing it. I don’t mean that to sound megalomaniac but to emphasise that I want my work to require something of who I am. You spend most of your life working, so it’s vital that there’s a real ‘so what?’ element to what you do. It’s important to me that my relationships make a difference to what I’m doing. People in the Arctic communities know me as Barbara, who happens to be an anthropologist, and I think this must help my credibility when I talk to them. My research has always included local collaboration, with a specific goal that there is a local end benefit – whether it’s facilitating environmental education classes taught by local folks, or promoting recognition of local expertise. ̽��ֱ��‘so what?’ of it all is as much about what happens locally as whether I’ll get a publication out of it.

What is your favourite research tool?

Mainly, it’s being able to talk to people. But I think any kind of social science depends on the dedication to use as many tools as possible – combining personal in-depth interviews with listening to people, taking part in what they do, analysing census data and going into the archives to find letters written 100 years ago. What anthropology has to offer is the possibility of working in the same communities for years – as well as having the chance to work in a different part of the world altogether. With any luck, that means your initial impressions and assumptions will get dashed to bits!

At first glance, reasons for researching locations as different as the Arctic and Mexico are not self-evident. But comparison is at the core of Social Anthropology and, for Dr Barbara Bodenhorn, a dual focus on these remarkably different environments is shaping a cross-cultural exchange programme between young members of three indigenous communities.

Through hands-on work with scientists and community elders, these young people gain new understanding of global processes, enrich their appreciation of their own local communities, and establish enduring bonds with young people whose worlds are very different from their own.

Barbara Bodenhorn

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Dr Barbara Bodenhorn

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Yes